Before You Break

by Kyla Stone

  Lena

  “Is this the spot for all the cool kids now?” I slip into the traffic-cone orange booth of Bill’s Bar and Grill. We pretty much ignored this place in high school.

  It’s not as run-down as I remember. The walls are all red brick and decorated with giant framed pictures of old-Hollywood celebrities: Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Nat King Cole. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Eli’s mom is watching Hadley, so we have the booth to ourselves. Eli grins at me, the corners of his mouth curling like he knows exactly what I’m thinking and feeling. He smells faintly of oil and grease.

  “They got the veggie burgers Hadley loves. My mom is turning her into a good little vegetarian.” He makes a face. “I started coming at the end of senior year, when my cousin hooked up with a girl who worked here.”

  “You have a cousin?” I rack my brain, trying to remember.

  “Lucas Kusuma? Messy hair? Serious acne? Nice guy, though. Totally chill.”

  A vague memory swims around in my head. “He was funny, right?”

  “Yep. Lucas still comes up to visit me on school breaks. Or maybe he comes for his girlfriend and just crashes with me. She’s in Chicago somewhere, but she comes back to see her little brothers. I think he’s gonna marry her.”

  “Cool. What are you reading?” I ask, nodding at his phone.

  “Don’t make fun of me. It’s called What to Do When Your Toddler is an Asshole.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “Don’t knock it. Little kids can be terrors. The book has all these tricks for getting said terrors to sleep through the night. It’s all about the schedule. Who knew? Oh, and you can get them to eat broccoli if you blend it up in a smoothie. You can totally hide vegetables in brownies.”

  “That’s horrible. Stop reading that crap, please. Imagine the trust issues she’ll have when she figures out you’ve been deceiving her all this time. ‘Brownies do not actually taste like spinach and kale, my darling. They’re a delicious gift from the food gods I’ve been keeping from you your whole life.’”

  “Very funny.”

  I grin at him and pick up a laminated menu.

  Astrid Ackelsen walks up to our table, her gold hair tucked into a messy bun on top of her head. Even in her loose overalls and ratty green apron, she looks like she’s just been transported here from the runway.

  “And of course, Astrid works here, too,” Eli says, a grin in his voice. “That’s reason enough to hang here.”

  “Hey,” I mumble. My stomach clenches jealously. Which doesn’t even make sense. I’m leaving. Packing it up and hightailing it out of town. I want this. I want to escape. Why should I feel even a speck of jealousy over Astrid? If she and Eli become a thing, what do I care?

  I don’t. It’s none of my business, none of my concern. And yet, my heart still flutters in my chest when I look at him. What the heck is wrong with me?

  “Hey, guys. What’s up? What can I get you?” she asks, her pen poised above her notepad. Even in the dim light from the bulb hanging over the table, her skin glows, ivory white and flawless.

  Instinctively, my hand flits up to cover my own flawed, freckled skin.

  “What’s good here?”

  “The mushroom burgers are fantastic.”

  “Great. I’ll have that. And coffee. Lots of coffee.”

  “Make that two.”

  Astrid collects our menus and leaves us in peace.

  “Hey, you okay?” Eli asks, peering at me beneath his thatch of dark hair.

  I clear my throat. “Yeah, fine. Anyway, thanks for coming. I just wanted to say thank you.” I push the wrapped present I brought across the table.

  Eli grins. “You got me a gift? I’m touched.”

  “Chill out. It’s for Hadley, too.”

  Eli rips off the silver wrapping paper and lifts out the 11 x 14 framed photograph of Hadley cupping the rock in her pudgy fingers, her face bright, her eyes glowing with joy and curiosity.

  Eli just stares at it for a long moment, his mouth working but no sounds coming out. “Oh, wow. This is fantastic.” His finger brushes across the glass. “Thank you, Lena.”

  Heat flushes my face. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “Whatever competition you entered, you’ll win.”

  I’m sure my face and neck are a deep scarlet. “I wish I had an ounce of your confidence. The gallery is tomorrow. All the art is displayed and people are coming from all over, important curators and magazine editors. The winner will be announced at the event. I can’t win if I’m not there. That’s why—” I swallow hard. “That’s why this is goodbye. I’m flying out tonight. I need to be there. This is huge for me.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  I look out the window. Dusk drapes everything in purple shadows. “I’m not.”

  “What?”

  “The funeral is over. I’ve made arrangements for everything else. Lux can keep the house. It’s time to return to my life, go back to school.”

  He’s staring at me, I know he is. I keep my gaze averted, barely seeing the cars in the parking lot or the huddled shapes of the trees beyond the road.

  I pretend this is what I want. I mean, it is what I want. It’s just not all I want.

  Not anymore.

  He doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches so long, I think he must be able to hear the thump of my heartbeat. I grab the container of sugars and start organizing the packets: Equal, Splenda, Stevia, then the white real sugar ones.

  Astrid brings us our sandwiches, enormous burgers smothered with mushrooms and melted Swiss cheese, the buns glazed with oil. My stomach twists in on itself. Suddenly, I’m not hungry.

  “We’ll miss you,” he says, his voice husky.

  I crumple a yellow Splenda packet in my fist. “Me, too.”

  He takes bite of his mushroom burger, wiping off the bits of lettuce stuck to his chin. “What about your sister?”

  “What about her?”

  “She seems like she’s in trouble.”

  My phone buzzes on the table next to my plate. I ignore it. I don’t want to hear her excuses. I can’t deal with her right now. “Lux is trouble.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Like, real trouble. Astrid told me she’s been getting completely wasted. She missed the funeral.”

  “That was her decision.” I fight down the nausea clawing up my throat. “She made her choice. She wants to live her own life. So fine, I’ll let her go.”

  “You don’t think something’s wrong?”

  “Is anything ever right when it comes to Lux? She does what she wants. She never thinks about anyone else. Besides, she hates me, okay? She doesn’t want me around. She’s made that crystal clear.”

  “Still.”

  “I can’t stay here,” I choke out. I’ve got to escape while I still can, while some part of my heart can still be salvaged. “Not a second more.”

  His forehead furrows. “What’s going on?”

  How can I explain what it’s like? My whole life is a lie. I’ve been betrayed by every single person in my family: my mother, Lux, even my father.

  He cheated on Mom. He left us when we needed him most. Not because he was scared or guilty, but because he was selfish. He was weak. He kept the ring on his finger, he kept the address, but in his head and his heart, he was already gone. He abandoned us.

  I clench my jaw. “My dad wasn’t who he said he was. He betrayed my family.”

  I can’t let myself think about that. If I do, my bones will crumble, my heart disintegrating into dust. I thought I wanted answers, I thought the truth could set me free. But it can’t.

  The truth is a raging fire that burns everything to the ground.

  I don’t want any part of the ashes.

  38

  Lux

  “Tell me what you want,” Reese says. “I’ll get it for you.”

  I take the pills. Chew the capsules. Snort the powder. I take whatever he gives me.

  Then I ask for more.
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  “Be careful, Princess,” he says.

  But I can’t hear him.

  I leave the bathroom and lurch down the hallway, leaning against the wall for balance. I find the display room and curl up on the floor, surrounded by menacing, ochre-stained skulls. They leer at me with their empty eye sockets.

  I stare up at the skulls. What lives did they live, when they wore skin? They look so peaceful. So still, ancient and wise. I can join them. I should join them.

  My vision spins. Stars exploding and dying right before my eyes.

  The fever fire roars through me. It’s jet fuel, propulsion, launching me into a brilliant, blinding stratosphere. It’s starfire lit beneath the mantle of my skin.

  I’ve swallowed a star. Not a star, a supernova. Imploding on itself. Bursting open from the inside.

  I remember Mom telling me about supernovas on a night when lightning shattered the sky and rain pummeled the roof over our heads. When a star’s core collapses, the shockwave from the explosion rushes through every fiery plasma layer. The supernova blasts apart, a hundred million pieces ricocheting through the universe.

  My thoughts are shooting stars. Darting, crashing, careening through my skull. Heat pumps through me. Blistering my brain, melting my eye sockets, scalding my pores.

  My mind fractures. I’m sinking fast. Into the darkness, the swirling vortex. The star collapsing, caving in on itself. The black hole so gigantic, so powerful, not even light can escape.

  I cradle my phone in my hands. Would anyone miss me? Does anyone even care?

  Black fire surges through my arteries, veins, capillaries. Smolders through every nerve, every synapse. My sister. My blood. The only thing I have left. Will she even miss me?

  Pain slams into me. I carried my secrets all this time. Like Dad, like Mom, I’ll carry them into the grave. And then it will end. The splintering shrieking in my brain will stop.

  Go quiet.

  A silence like drowning.

  The black hole sucks me down, down, down.

  I curl into a ball, covering my ears with my hands. I won’t have to run anymore. Won’t have to be anymore. Won’t have to live inside this hateful, loathsome skin.

  My heart explodes.

  What they don’t tell you: for that brilliant, shattering moment, a supernova shines as brightly as a whole galaxy of stars.

  39

  Lena

  Eli stares at me for a long moment. The space between us fills with the clink of dishes in the kitchen, the murmur of the couple in the booth next to us. The bell over the door jangles as a new customer comes in.

  “I don’t think you really feel that way about Lux,” Eli says.

  “How do you know? She made her choice.”

  Eli doesn’t speak for a moment. He stirs a French fry in a puddle of ketchup. “I know you’re grieving. And you probably have every right to be angry—”

  “I do.”

  “You have every right to be angry. But I’m sure there’s more to the story. Everyone handles things differently. Some people just aren’t as strong. I have a feeling very few people are as strong as you.”

  “It’s not about being strong. It’s about doing the right thing.”

  “Exactly what I’m talking about. When your dad had his heart attack, you didn’t even think about not quitting school, did you? I bet the thought of hiring a nurse never even entered your mind.”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “But it wasn’t even a decision you had to make, was it? You knew what you had to do and you did it.”

  I shrug, staring down at my uneaten food.

  “Most people aren’t like that. ‘Doing the right thing’ is a struggle every step of the way. People want to protect themselves from the things they’re scared of, like death, and responsibility. And guilt.”

  “You think I don’t feel all those things too?”

  “I’m sure you do. I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who’s made some huge mistakes myself. It must be hard for Lux. She probably feels like an absolute loser next to you.”

  I sip my coffee. It’s cold and gritty. My throat feels coated in grime. I think of her, purposefully missing Dad’s funeral. I think of my promise to Dad. But I don’t owe him anything anymore. “She hates me.”

  “You’re her sister, the only family either of you have left. She needs you.”

  My heart twists. Guilt spears me. “But she’s so—she’s so—”

  “Hard to love?” Eli says wryly.

  “Exactly. She wrote me off a long time ago. Right or wrong. Maybe right, I don’t know.” I remember Lux at Mom’s funeral, her little body hunched in a ball on the hallway floor. Her face looked fake, false somehow, like it was made of plastic, like it wasn’t real at all. She was always so emotional. She cried and screamed at everything. But that day, she didn’t cry at all.

  She was a stone girl, with a stone heart.

  No, maybe I’m remembering it wrong. Maybe the stone girl was me.

  “My dad made me promise.” I rub my eyes with the palms of my hands. “He wanted me to find her, to save her.”

  “And?”

  “And it feels like it’s too late.”

  My phone buzzes on the table. Another text.

  “You sure?” Eli nods at the phone.

  I stare at it, everything it represents, everything it might or might not mean. Was I the stone girl? Am I? Is this who I am? Who I want to be?

  This time I tap the screen. This time I read it. Sry I nevr said gdbye.

  “I’m not spying,” Eli says, but he is. He leans over to read the message.

  My heart clenches, my pulse pounding in my ears.

  Eli reaches across the table and grabs my hand. A spark of electricity zaps up my arm and jolts my heart. “Look. She’s messed up, no doubt. But love is messy. Love scrawls outside the lines. It never fits inside the small little box we plan for our life.”

  I shake my head, emotions warring inside me, a confusing assault of fear and love and resentment and guilt and obligation. “My suitcase is in the car. My plane leaves in an hour. The gallery is tomorrow …”

  “All important facts. But?”

  My heart is hemorrhaging pain. My escape hatch is right in front of me. I can taste my future, it’s so close, so alive. This is my dream, my big chance. If not now, then when? The rest of my life dissolves before me in a gray, impenetrable fog.

  Because there’s Lux.

  “You think I should stay.”

  “I’m not telling you what to think. I’m simply offering up some brilliant advice. Normally I’d charge, but you know, Hadley has a soft spot for you.”

  “You think you’re always right, don’t you?”

  “Glad you’re finally seeing the light.”

  I try to smile at him, but inside me, things are falling apart. I’m breaking into pieces.

  I think of Dad, whose memory brings a stab of grief, then bright, white-hot anger. He was weak. He checked out when we needed him most. He didn’t protect us from Mom during her bad times. He didn’t keep us safe.

  And after her death, he was a ghost, consumed by his own guilt, grief, and lost love. A ghost can’t comfort you, can’t hold you in the middle of the night when your heart is disintegrating.

  And Mom. My love for her is tangled with sorrow and resentment and pain, so much pain. No matter what I did, I couldn’t keep her here. She left us, too.

  Now here I am, facing the same choice. To stay. To go. To go or stay. To escape and save myself. Or stay and step into the muck and mire threatening to drag me under.

  I see my mother, leaning close, her hair smelling of jasmine as it falls over my face and shoulder, curtaining us both, the night sky above us a cavern of cascading light.

  Wish I may, wish I might, which star will you wish on tonight?

  And then, another text: I’m sry for evrythng.

  My heart stops. I reread the text. Read it again. This doesn’t sound like her. Not at all. Unless … I te
xt her back: Where are you?

  No answer.

  Are you okay?

  No answer.

  I call her number. It just rings.

  Just let me know you’re okay. Please.

  Nothing.

  I clutch my phone. No. No, no, no. Not again. Not her.

  “I think she—” I can’t speak the words aloud. They’re nails in my throat.

  Eli doesn’t hesitate. “Let’s go get her.”

  I look at him. “I don’t know where she is.”

  “I do.” He jumps up from the table and disappears around the corner. A moment later, he returns, dragging Astrid with him. “We need to know where Lux is.”

  She sticks the end of her pen in her mouth and chews. “There are a few different parties tonight, but …” her voice trails off. She eyes us warily.

  “We’re not the cops, Astrid. Come on, you know me. This is important.”

  “Please,” I say, my voice raw.

  Astrid rolls her eyes. “Only for you. Lux hasn’t been partying at the usual places lately. Rumor has it she’s gone straight to the source.”

  “Meaning?”

  “This guy Reese is the dealer for everybody around here, everybody at the high school, anyway. Lux’s been slumming it heavy with him for weeks now. But the guy Reese goes to for his stash is like a middle-aged dude named Floyd something. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard a few things. Real sleazy. He’s bad news.

  “Sometimes some of the real hardcore guys hang out at his place. Like, all night benders. I heard he’s having a party tonight. If I was a betting girl, which I definitely am, I’d put my money on his place. She’s in crazy deep lately. More than I can handle, for sure.”

  I’m already up, grabbing my phone and jacket. “Can we get the address?”

  “Text it to me,” Eli says, tossing a twenty on the table. “Thanks, Astrid. We owe you.”

  “You can take my next shift at the shop,” she calls after us as we hurry out of Bill’s.

  I turn to Eli. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Just get in the car.”

  For once, I listen without saying another word.